The next time you visit the Finance Ministry,dont forget to take a close look at the walls in the offices of its mandarins,from Finance Secretary Ashok Chawlas spacious room to Revenue Secretary Sunil Mitras chamber to Special Advisor Omita Pauls modest space adjoining that of the Finance Minister or even that of the old world- style meeting room. Adorning the walls are exquisite paintings by a rather unassuming Madhubani painter,Lalita Devi hailing from a Dalit family of national award winners from Koilakh village in Madhubani district of north Bihar. Each one of the finely executed paintings,which take between two to five months of work,narrate mythological stories of Ram vivaha or Shiv vivaha or even those paying homage to the reigning deity of Dalits,Raja Salhesh in a unique style that have made Madhubani or Mithila paintings famous. But there is another interesting story on how the paintings came to embellish the otherwise plain walls of the Finance Ministry. Lalita Devis husband Charitra Paswan is a Group C employee posted in the Finance Secretarys office. A few years ago he overheard Sushma Nath,then Joint Secretary in the Ministry,instructing her staff to buy some Madhubani paintings from the upscale Cottage Emporium for her room. Hesitatingly,he told her that his wife was a Madhubani painter,adding that it would probably save the Ministry a lot of money if her paintings were brought as she could be compensated with a nominal sum. For Nath,whose job even now as Secretary (Expenditure) is to cut government expenses,the offer made sense. And soon several paintings were hanging in the rooms of senior Ministry officials. Lalita Devis work spread by word of mouth. Jairam Ramesh,then junior minister in the Commerce Ministry,was among those who bought one of the paintings to install it in his Udyog Bhawan office. So did RBI Governor D Subbarao who commissioned a second one to gift it to former Finance Secretary Adarsh Kishore when he left as Executive Director at the World Bank. Corporate honchos who frequent the Finance Ministry too picked up the paintings Suzlon commissioned some for their Pune headquarters. A couple are also hanging at Nabards Rajendra Place office. In our village in Madhubani district,almost everyone practices this form of art. I have been doing this for the last twenty years, says Lalita Devi,adding that eleven members in her family have received awards. Among them four are national awardees. Her maternal uncle Shivam Paswan and his wife Shanti Devi won the national award for Madhubani painting in 1980. Her paternal aunt Chano Devi,an expert in Goidana,one of the forms of Mithila painting,was awarded the national award in 2008. Another aunt,Ramsundari Devi,received an award from the Bihar government. Her two sisters and elder brother are accomplished Madhubani painters. Lalita Devi makes at least two trips a year to her village to bring natural dyes and pass on orders she cannot cope with to the villagers. We use natural dyes in the same way that we have been doing for generations, she says. For rust,its the bark of the peepul tree,for green the crushed leaves of the bean plant. Black,of course,is lamp soot and blue is a mix of powdered rice and soot. Saffron is made from the saffron flowers and then we add preservatives,lac from a variety of tree found locally in Madhubani and surrounding areas,that gives permanency to the colours. I do get offers from abroad also to paint,but because of our children,we are not able to go anywhere, says Lalita. The Paswans have three school-going children,two daughters and a son. Needless to say,all three are expert Madhubani painters. The Madhubani form of art,originally wall and floor fresco paintings,used to adorn fresh walls of mud homes in Mithila region and was practised mostly by womenfolk. It was innovatively transferred onto paper and cloth in the mid-sixties after the region suffered a drought and sold through government handicraft shops.
